Tim Timmons holds a glass pipe filled with marijuana prior to smoking it at his Garland home October 26, 2010. Timmons, who suffers from multiple sclerosis, has offered to go before the Texas legislature to show lawmakers what a toke looks like and explain the benefits in order to convince them that medical marijuana should be legalized. (COURTNEY PERRY/Staff Photographer)

Texas has taken the first major step toward legalizing marijuana, but with time limited and state leaders' strongly opposed, it's unlikely to happen.

A House committee voted to approve a proposal Wednesday that would remove all mention of marijuana from criminal statutes. The measure by conservative Rep. David Simpson, R-Longview, is the first of its kind in Texas, and many are surprised by its progress.

When Simpson filed the bill in March, he said “God did not make a mistake when he made marijuana that the government needs to fix.”

Pot backers called the vote an "important step" to eventually ending marijuana prohibition. The approved measure was amended to make it a Class C misdemeanor to sell marijuana to minors.

Rep. Joe Moody, D-El Paso, who serves as vice-chair of the committee that approved the measure, was one of three Democrats and two Republicans who voted for the bill, but said he would still like to see it incorporate a more structured regulatory system.

Mostly, he's glad the discussion is taking place at all. "The move by the policy makers in that committee signaled to the House that it's time to move this discussion front and center," Moody said.

"We shouldn't be absent from a conversation the whole country is having."

The bill’s next step on the long road to becoming a law is to get a hearing by the full House.

Another “yes” vote came from Rep. Todd Hunter, R-Corpus Christi, who leads the committee that makes the schedule for the House.

While Hunter’s support bodes well for the proposal, he said that at this point in the session it will be difficult to get any bill coming out of committee on the schedule in time. The same committee voted to revive a bill on Monday that would decriminalize possession of less than one ounce of marijuana, making it punishable by a fine of up to $250 rather than jail time.

That bill by Moody was backed by several conservative lawmakers who said it was the “tough on crime” position. Rep. Byan Hughes, R-Mineola, threw his support behind Moody’s decriminalization measure but stopped short of supporting legalization.

Hughes told The News in April that Simpson’s proposal “has gotten a debate started and gotten a discussion started and maybe that’s the intent of it.” The state leadership have repeatedly expressed their support for current drug laws.